Shattered Hearts

Chapter Seventeen

I COULD STILL FEEL HER BODY on mine, holding me for dear life as she slept, her hair sprawled onto my chest. I watched her sleep with her mouth slightly parted as she nuzzled her face into my chest. It was the most beautiful site. I cringed just thinking about that word.

My life was dark, blood-shedding, dead, and empty, and when I took her, I'd never thought I'd end up with her in my arms.

The jealousy pierced me like a poisoned sword when she giggled for Marco. It felt bitter on my tongue, and I wanted to hurt him. He knew it and apologised in the car. He knew I wanted her too. God, he knew from the beginning despite my denials.

Marco had some sympathy inside him. I didn't have that, and I'd be a fool to let her see Marco as someone she could talk to when she needed someone. I wanted her and shouldn't want another woman after Anastasiya betrayed me.

I still remember the scene like it was yesterday; her and my father dining and laughing with fucking white wine and her stalking-clad feet massaging his crotch. They were laughing about how foolish I was for going soft for her. It was another of Fyodor's plans to get under my skin and break me further. She did it for the large sum of money he promised her after she left me.

The only thing she regretted was me finding out sooner than she planned because Fyodor took some money off her end deal. We were eighteen, and I thought I'd found that perfect woman, but it wasn't perfect when we turned twenty. It was a lie.

Then, I got sent to the military, and I promised myself never to love another woman. Then I saw that brown-haired girl through my rifle, and my heart skipped a beat. I wanted Giulia Caruso: the forbidden fruit.

Just the thought of sending her back angers me. Her brother tried to kill her, and her father abandoned her, so who shall I send her back to? Her death and downfall? I wouldn't do it, but it wasn't what I wanted. It was what she wanted to do.

I didn't get any sleep because I didn't want to give in to my need. It was a battle between making her mine and never being with a woman. The former won when I saw her sleeping peacefully in her bed. The bed I touched her on. It was like a switch snapped in me, and I realised I was going to her with a stay bag.

When I walked down the hallway to her room and heard her scream, I'd entered protection mode that I only used for my mother and Katya. I was about to kill the cause of her pain, but when her tear-filled eyes met mine and pleaded with me to hold her, I did that.

My heart was beating again, and making her mine would either break or make me. I didn't care. I would heal her wounds despite my oozing ones, and her shattered heart will be whole. I'd make it complete but feared the consequences with it. Fuck, I didn't fear anything. I could hear the alarm bells in my head, but it was Giulia Caruso.

She lied to me, too. I could see it in her green eyes before she lowered them to her clenched fist around her dress. She didn't trust me, but I'd make her. I'd be damned if she would put herself in Raffaele's claws again. We both needed answers; mine for leverage and hers for closure. We'd get it together.